tarski

"That's probably an even worse feeling since the decision is totally out of your hands." Heh, I'm looking forward to that, actually . Anyways, my own way of organizing is a folder for each school filled with various stuff: sop drafts, lists of professors with interests that match mine, papers to read, and a small text file with essential stuff like how many pages the writing sample is and what the deadline is. Each of my letter writers gets CV + writing sample + SOPs (this is over time) + transcript + list of deadlines.

Pretty specific question: for the OGS list of Significant Academic Accomplishments, would you put an undergraduate thesis on it? I have a handout from a university-wide meeting that says "No!", and memories from a departmental meeting that say "Yes!". I just sent an email to my advisor, but thought I'd ask here too.

I went to some workshops this week. The cutoff (at my school it's 10.0) seems to be a hard one (as in the application isn't considered if it's below 10.0). As for how much your grades matter in terms of being above 10.0, they were more vague. If you're applying for first year grad studies grades might be a pretty big factor, but if you're applying for later years then your competitors will be more likely to also have publications, and that will start to matter more.

Ugh, I know. The OP seems to be pointing to two sorts of questions, the body of the text asks (1) "How important is past research to get in?" and the topic seems to ask (2) "how do you come up with an idea for research?" (1) I've been stalking the CVs of philosophy grad students at a range of places, and there seem to be both people with undergrad/ma research as well as no undergrad/ma research. (2) If you're really struggling for an idea, carefully look over the conclusions of some papers you like. They tend to point out unanswered questions. My conference presentation came from unabashedly taking one of those questions and answering it (of course, be sure to mention where it's coming from).

As long as they've scheduled an office hour, you're not bugging them if you show up . Just go and ask some questions, mention your Istanbul plans maybe. Typically my professors are bored sensless during their office hours and are very happy when someone decides to actually show up and talk.

This post on applyingtograd was about this topic, might be interesting for you. http://community.livejournal.com/applyi ... 65302.html

People tend to say to trust the PowerPrep software the most (it's ETS and CAT, while it sounds like the ETS one that you're using is paper-based). So my answer to the first question is don't know, and the second question is go to the ETS website and give PowerPrep a shot .

I'm Canadian too. You've probably looked at the programs in Canada that you like and confirmed that they don't ask for the GRE, but in case you didn't, I thought it was worth warning you that Toronto asks for GREs for philosophy PhD applicants, and McGill "strongly encourages" that philosophy PhD applicants take the GRE (so at least some Canadian programs want it).

About mentioning your low grades: I've noticed some schools, in their SOP prompts, actually say that it's a space where you can explain anomalies in your GPA/GREs, etc. So if they say that, do it. Just make sure to explain it as something you got over: "I was upset in 200X by an assault and my grades in that term suffered, but as you can see, I wave worked past that: since then I have maintained a much higher GPA, presented at conferences, etc.". I'd second that it's good to have a prof mention it also/in more detail.

I'm curious about this as well. I haven't taken the GRE yet, but I just did PowerPrep and got 760 V, and my FreeRice score usually hovers around 44-48. However, the FreeRice words seem way more obscure than anything I just encountered on PowerPrep. (and this makes me think maybe I should focus my attention elsewhere, like more in depth definitions and syns/ants of more common words)

I'm pretty terrified of not getting in somewhere, so I'm applying to 17-ish. Philosophy PhDs, a few MAs. They're all places I would actually like to go, though. neoreeldancer: why did you hate NYC? I'm curious because I'm applying to several programs there. Just too big/busy etc.?

For anyone else who was waiting: application forms are now up for MA/PhD in humanities, they weren't a couple days ago.

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